Digital cameras have captured a significant share of the market for both consumer and professional cameras. While photos or images in digital form are convenient for many uses, users oftentimes desire to obtain prints of their captured images. There are several known ways to obtain a paper print of a digital photo. The most common technique is to print the photographs on a local color printer. To accomplish this, the user downloads the photos from the camera to a personal computer. Using software on the computer, the user can then select photographs for printing, and send them to their printer. Although the cost of color printers continues to decrease, users have been frustrated with this technique for creating prints of digital photographs for a number of reasons. First, the ink cartridges used by home color printers frequently run out of ink or dry out because of non-use. Purchasing and replacing the ink cartridges remains expensive and time consuming. In addition, the expense of buying the quality paper necessary for good photo prints means that there is little cost savings in printing photographs on home equipment.
To avoid the hassle of home printing, a user may email photographs from their personal computer to a photo printing service, such as Snapfish.com. This is disadvantageous because a computer is required and thus the locations from which the user may accomplish this task are limited. Further, this process has many steps and is cumbersome and time-consuming. Alternatively, the media on which the digital camera stores images, such as on a compact flash memory card, can be transported to a photo lab for print processing. It may, however, be inconvenient for a user to travel to a photo lab. Furthermore, the user's preferred print lab may be remote from the user's location, such as when the user is traveling. In addition, flash memory cards and the like are small and may easily be lost or misplaced. What is needed is a simple way to submit images directly from a digital camera to a preferred photo lab for the creation and delivery of prints. Prior art techniques that accomplish this suffer in that wireless transceivers are embedded in the camera, meaning that the camera becomes bulky and that the transceiver quickly drains battery resources on the camera. Furthermore, a theft of one of these cameras may allow a thief access to a user's payment mechanism.